


To The World

by talkingtothesky



Category: Good Omens (TV), Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Crossover, Episode: s05e13 Return 0, Fix-It, Hurt/Comfort, John Lives, Love Confessions, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-22
Updated: 2019-06-22
Packaged: 2020-05-07 19:41:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19216186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/talkingtothesky/pseuds/talkingtothesky
Summary: Harold Finch needs a miracle.





	To The World

“We’ll have to fly,” Crowley decides, tilting his head back and squinting at the dizzying height of the skyscraper.

Aziraphale gulps. He gets motion sick in cars. Even when he guarded the Eastern Gate, he preferred to keep his feet on the ground.

“Five minutes, angel,” Crowley reminds him, starting to run. “I’ll take the other side.”

They’re not preventing the Earth from blinking out of existence this time, but they are making sure humans get to keep their free will. Samaritan has become one of Satan’s most pernicious devices. The forces of Evil remain formidable, despite Crowley no longer working for them.

Aziraphale straightens his bowtie and allows his wings to slide into the corporeal realm. During the ascent, he reassures himself with a stammered mantra of “Don’t look down”, which is not particularly effective.

He clears the rooftop just in time to see Crowley’s dark wings outstretched, supporting him over the opposite edge. His fear spikes, not for himself but for Crowley. Three humans in full body armour pointing machine guns. Then Crowley snaps his fingers and all three of them freeze in place.

It’s safe to land. Crowley makes it down with his customary fluid grace. Aziraphale staggers on the shifting gravel. When he regains his balance, he comments apprehensively: “Those are awfully large guns.”

Crowley makes another gesture and the assailants instead hold bright yellow and green water pistols. Harmless.

There’s a man lying on the ground, slumped against a metal girder. John, his name is John. His white shirt is marred with spreading patches of red. Crowley and Aziraphale rush towards him. As Aziraphale draws nearer, he senses the air is suffused with John’s emotions. Fear, relief, sorrow, doubt. He’s alive, they’re not too late.

Crouching at his side, Aziraphale concentrates fiercely as he passes his hand over John’s shoulder and stomach, healing the wounds, while Crowley miracles away the blood.

John shifts, blinking slowly, then smiles weakly. “Har’ld. What happened to your hair?”

Aziraphale shares a worried glance with the demon. To John, he explains: “I am Aziraphale, this is Crowley.”

“We need to get him out of here,” Crowley says urgently.

“’M I in the wrong place? Doesn’t look like hell.” John can barely hold his own head up but he’s attempting to look around.

Aziraphale wraps his hand around John’s arm. “Can you stand?”

Then a voice calls out. It’s only just audible above the wind, the distance between buildings. “Mr. Reese!”

“Over there! Now!” yells Crowley.

Aziraphale tugs with all his might on John’s arm and simply _prays_ they make it across without plummeting to their deaths. For once, She is listening. They do.

Humans aren’t supposed to be able to transport, the way angels can. Disappearing in one space and reappearing in another is disorienting enough when one is not already clinging to consciousness by the thinnest of threads. When they arrive, John is out cold. He collapses on the other roof, but his chest rises and falls with steady breaths.

“John!” A man in a dark three piece suit and gold tie - Harold - limps over, sliding to the floor and cradling John in his lap.

He looks up at Aziraphale with a startling helplessness. “The missile.”

Aziraphale left Crowley behind on the other roof. Now he’s the one to call his friend’s name, voice gone high and tight.

“Yup, I’m on it!”

It swoops in at an acute angle. But Crowley’s powers are immense. He slows its momentum down and down and down until they stop there, vibrating, nose to tip. Crowley clicks his fingers, and the bomb explodes in a shower of rainbow confetti. It starts to collect in his hair, and Crowley is cackling to himself as he spins on a wing and flaps his way over.

“Now you’re just showing off,” Aziraphale says fondly, relief making his knees a bit watery.

“Thank you very much,” Crowley affects an Elvis accent as he touches down on one knee, whipping off his sunglasses.

Aziraphale halfheartedly swats at his shoulder. “Stop it. That was very impressive. You needn’t gloat.”

“You’re no fun, angel. Let me have my moment - wait, what’s happening to him?”

Aziraphale tears his eyes away from Crowley to find Harold keeled over with his head on John’s chest. It doesn’t look good - he’s very pale.

“He’s been shot too. Hours ago. The poor thing.” Aziraphale finds the damp section of his waistcoat and does the same for him as he did for John. It takes effort to rectify extensive blood loss. By the time the process is complete, Aziraphale is breathing hard, and furiously angry. Perhaps Harold’s emotions have spilled onto him. Aziraphale faces the other roof, holds up his palms. The three Samaritan agents, still frozen in time, holding their toy guns, covered head to toe in colourful paper circles…vanish, one by one.

Crowley’s mouth quirks to one side. “Where did you send them?”

“Somewhere extremely hot and sunny,” Aziraphale says, and lets his ire settle.

 

~

 

Harold drowns in memories for a while.

He almost wakes up shouting for Nathan, but his lips form John’s name, and from there the cascade of No Please John You Can’t Go This Isn’t The Way Don’t Leave Me Here Alone… washes through him, swept along by a terrible tide. Patient Zero. Everyone who ever loves him dies.

Please don’t care for me, he remembers thinking, once. If I call you Mr. Reese and keep my distance, will you keep yours?

A futile wish. They became good friends. More than that. Within a year Harold trusted John with the Machine. He hadn’t fully trusted Nathan, his best friend for thirty years.

Harold blinks at the ceiling and feels tears on his face. Ceiling? Not gray sky or green subway tiles? Where is he?

“Here. Take it easy, Harold.” A handkerchief is tucked into his hand. The bed beneath him adjusts with an electronic hum before he can begin the struggle to sit up. His neck is hurting, but physically, he’s had worse. The strongest pain is in his heart.

Harold looks from the handkerchief to John’s beloved face, and sobs.

“Shhh, you’re okay. Everyone’s okay. Shaw and Fusco have been by, left you those.” Some cards and a plush toy penguin are on a wheeled table by the bed. 

“Am I… hallucinating? I saw Root…the Machine. She stood beside me as you said goodbye. That’s not possible. You’re not possible.”

John’s hand encircles Harold’s wrist, thumb stroking his arm. “How much do you remember? I was really confused when I came round, too.”

“You…you told me to go, that it would get exciting…The Machine said I was messing up your plan, but I was stubborn, I stayed. I heard the shots. I saw you fall.” His voice cracks. John’s grip tightens momentarily. Harold reaches across with his left hand to cover John’s. He feels solid enough.

“And then?” John’s eyes are so beautiful, filled with unshed tears.

Somehow this gives Harold the strength to continue, to do as he’s been asked. “There was this black shape, rising up out of nowhere. It looked like…Death. It flew down and I called your name…I didn’t want them to take you away. But instead they…brought you to me.”

“Shock of white hair.” John says, leaning in conspiratorially.

Harold’s voice drops a register. “ _Yes_. How do you know that?”

“I saw them too. Said their names were…something and Crowley.”

“Aziraphale.”

Harold startles. John doesn’t.

Lounging in the far corner of the room is a man with dark clothes and red hair. He’s wearing sunglasses indoors. The back of Harold’s neck prickles in a way unrelated to his injury.

Beside Crowley, another being fades into existence, dressed in cream and white and beige. He gives a cheery wave. “Hello again. So glad to see you’re on the mend.”

Harold has never seen tension flow out of John’s shoulders so quickly. It’s as though someone has stroked him with a feather. “Thank you.”

Harold is a good deal more suspicious than John. “How did you know to find us?”

Aziraphale knits his fingers together on his stomach and twiddles his thumbs. “We have a book.”

John turns back to Harold, starting to smile, referring to the day they met. “Like a list?”

Aziraphale starts to elaborate. “A book of proph-”

But Crowley cuts him off, rising from his chair seemingly without using his legs. “Trade secret. Moving on. We have to be going now, things to do, lives across the pond. You understand. Just...take care of each other. And don’t waste any more time. It took us six thousand years. You haven’t got that long.” Crowley takes Aziraphale’s hand, who tuts and bumps his shoulder.

To Harold and John, Aziraphale adds: “Yes, don’t be too eager to die, will you. Trust me, it’s not nearly as much fun up there as you might have been told.” He waggles a finger at the ceiling.

“Bye, then,” Crowley says, and unceremoniously drags his friend away into the ether.

“Exactly how many drugs am I on?” Harold says flippantly, after a few moments of stunned quiet.

John chuckles, then ducks down to kiss the back of Harold’s hand, displaying once again his unashamed devotion.

Harold loses his breath. “John…” But he’s still not quite ready to say it. He changes the subject. “The Machine, did it work? Is Samaritan …?”

John reaches into his pocket and pulls out his phone. “Oh, yeah. She left this on our old voicemail.” He taps the screen a few times, presses play.

_"If you can hear this, we won. Harry, you once said the war must be won, at any cost. I’m sorry the cost was so high. But Samaritan is history, and now you and John can start again. Whatever you decide, I’ll take care of Sameen. She won’t be alone. None of you will.”_

Harold closes his eyes, swallows back fresh tears. It still hurts to hear her voice. But the Machine will keep Root alive in their memories. The world is safe. And John…loves him the same way Harold loves John.

Carefully, Harold shifts his left hip over, then his right. He repeats this shuffling motion until he’s close to the side of the mattress.

“Where are you going?” Concern reappears in John’s voice. He puts his phone away, stands up, ready to help Harold to walk if he wants. 

“Just making space,” Harold says quietly. “Get in.”

“Don’t I get a dinner date first?”

Harold stares at him flatly. Without further comment, John joins him in the hospital bed. When he’s comfortable, Harold wraps both arms around him in a sideways hug. Harold is gratified to note that John makes a small, wanting noise in the back of his throat before he reciprocates. They have both been waiting far too many years for this.

“I won’t chastise you for trying to make me the one left behind. That would be hypocritical of me. But John…”

“It’s okay, Harold. You don’t have to say it.”

“But I do. I owe you that much.”

“You don’t owe me anything, Mr. Finch.”

Harold smiles softly, shakes his head, lifts one hand to stroke John’s cheek. “I love you. I’m _in_ love with you. I have been for quite some time. I would be…unmoored if I lost you. You’re not only my partner, it’s as though you connect me to -” 

“The world,” John says, and kisses him for the first time.

**Author's Note:**

>  _"When you find that one person who connects you **to the world** , you become someone different. Someone better."_  
> \- John Reese, Person of Interest 1x01


End file.
